i 2 8 THE SPORT OF KINGS 



into a more open country. Going from one covert 

 to another, they came across a gate which was bad 

 to open, and the men who had been so free with 

 their chaff looked round for some one to open it 

 for them, for opening necessitated getting off into 

 a wet hole. " I'll manage the gate," said the man 

 whom they had chaffed, and riding up to it at a 

 trot he jumped it in his stride. And then he 

 pulled up and " let them have it " concerning their 

 bad manners of the morning. His nerve, it will 

 be observed, was not strong enough to face the 

 cramped place in his then condition, but it enabled 

 him to ride over a gate in cold blood. 



" Familiarity breeds contempt," says the old 

 copybook motto, and it is one of the curiosities of 

 riding nerve that a man will go hard in some 

 countries, whilst in others which are very similar he, 

 to use a well-known colloquialism, " will not ride 

 a yard." It is easy enough to understand how a 

 hard-riding man from the shires or any big low 

 country may find himself at a loss how to get to 

 hounds over the stones and bogs of Dartmoor, 

 and it is equally easy to understand how a native 

 of the moors, who will gallop top pace in the 

 heather regardless of holes and big stones, and who 

 will ride along precipitous paths with a nonchalance 

 which is perfectly appalling, will find himself non- 

 plussed when he meets a fairly wide drain with the 

 fence at the landing side. This is good enough to 

 understand. What is not at all easy to under- 

 stand is the case I put at first, that of a man going 

 hard in one country, and not going at all in one 

 which in every respect is similar. An instance of 

 this occurs to me. The gentleman in question, 

 who apparently has an iron nerve, will in his own 



